News

It should be mainly overcast in Czechia on Tuesday, with an average high temperature of 27 degrees Celsius. Similar temperatures are expected on the following days.

Hiring citizens of other states to carry out crimes is a new Russian tactic, the head of the Czech counterintelligence service, known by the acronym BIS, said on Monday. In an interview with the news site Hlidacipes.org, Michal Koudelka gave the example of the Colombian man recently caught trying to set buses on fire at a Prague depot.

Mr. Koudelka said the attacker in such cases did not even need to know they were working for Moscow.

Last week Prime Minister Petr Fiala said it was highly likely that the Kremlin was behind the attempted attack on the Prague depot. Similar incidents have been reported in other European countries.

Czech President Petr Pavel has welcomed the outcome of the peace summit on Ukraine held in Switzerland over the weekend, saying that the expectations that it would bring at least some progress towards peace had been fulfilled. He said it was vitally important that an overwhelming number of countries had expressed support for the UN charter, Ukraine’s right of self-defense and the need to preserve the country’s territorial integrity. The fact that some of the participating states did not sign the joint final declaration does not automatically mean that they are in opposition, Mr. Pavel said. He described the summit as a first step on the road to peace, and stressed the importance of getting China on board as negotiations continue.

The two-day summit ended with a joint declaration stating that the territorial integrity of Ukraine must be the basis for any future peace agreement. It further called for the release of war prisoners and the return of all deported and displaced Ukrainian children, and the need to safeguard the nuclear installations in the country.

Slovakia’s newly-inaugurated president, Peter Pellegrini will pay a state visit to Czechia on June 26. President Pellegrini, who took office on Saturday, confirmed the planned visit in a discussion program on the Slovak public broadcaster RTVS. Mr. Pellegrini said that in an earlier conversation with the Czech head of state, President Pavel had hinted that the visit could be a symbol of reconciliation between the two countries following the Czech cabinet's decision in March to suspend intergovernmental consultations with Slovakia. The two countries, which have exceptionally close ties, disagree on the question of providing military aid to Ukraine. The Slovak government recently stopped all state-funded military aid to the country.